Marjorie Moorhead
Presumptive Winners

For this one   moment
exhale, let
the breath of hope float
on air of gratitude
to the universe

that just in this   moment
we can know
a fascist state has been rejected;
a dangerously-unhinged man
and his pathetic crew
will be ejected.
A woman of color given her seat of power;
anointed agent of change.
This   moment   we heard
an elected leader speak of better
angels and dismantling systemic
hatred.

Take this   moment,
inhale palpable joy,
relief and hope.
In tomorrow’s moments,
fear floods back; struggles
remain.
So many struggles.
But, for this one   moment…

—Submitted on 11/08/2020

Marjorie Moorhead is the author of the chapbooks Survival: Trees, Tides, Song (Finishing Line Press 2019), and Survival Part 2: Trees, Birds, Ocean, Bees (Duck Lake Books 2020). Her poems have appeared in Sheila-Na-Gig, Porter House Review, Verse-Virtual, Rising Phoenix Review, Amethyst Review, and other journals, as well as in several anthologies, including most recently Covid Spring (Hobblebush Books, 2020). 

SUBMIT to Transition: Poems in the Afterglow via our SUBMITTABLE site. 

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.

Deonte Osayande
America

I, too, sing America.

Way down south in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
They hung my black young lover
To a crossroads tree.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Way down south in Dixie
(Bruised body high in air)
I asked the white lord Jesus
What was the use of prayer

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen”,
Then.

Way down south in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
Love is a naked shadow
On a gnarled and naked tree

Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

I too, am America.

—Submitted on 11/10/2020

Author’s Note: “America” is a contrapuntal erasure of “I, too” and “Song for the Dark Girl” by Langston Hughes.

Deonte Osayande is a writer from Detroit, Mich. His books include Class (Urban Farmhouse Press, 2017), Circus (Brick Mantle Books, 2018) and Civilian (Urban Farmhouse Press, 2019. His poems appear in Button Poetry and other journals. Osayande has represented Detroit at four National Poetry Slam competitions. Manager of the Rustbelt Midwest Regional Poetry Slam and Festival for 2014 and 2018, he is a professor of English at Wayne County Community College.

SUBMIT to Transition: Poems in the Afterglow via our SUBMITTABLE site. 

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.

Andrea England
On Hearing That Google Searches for “Liquor Store Near Me” Were at an All-time High on Election Night

It was said of COVID too, sheltered in place, shelves
unburdened of proofs, un-scienced, Venus high
and as yellow as a jaundiced newborn.

I’m not much of a drinker anymore, so I sip
a glass of wine around a neighbor’s bonfire,
listening to votes roll in and chicken

sizzle on the grate, for a minute feeling
a little guilty for the luxury of food and the
moon. My daughter is telling a story and I

find myself interrupting again. I want all
her stories to be our stories. Is that so bad?
I am learning to let go of death, this election,

ideas that I can forever protect my daughter
as long as I pretend I have control over my
body and her screen-time. Like the thermostat,

I am guilty of waiting until it’s too cold to turn
up the heat, the sweat of over-compensating
waking me up in the night, this whole country

menopausal. The morning after is already here,
the coffee weakening, the sun and the moon still
at odds, both fighting to light up the sky.

—Submitted on 11/09/2020

Andrea England is the co-editor of the anthology Scientists and Poets #Resist (Brill Press, 2019), and the author of Other Geographies (Creative Justice Press, 2017) and Inventory of a Field (Finishing Line Press, 2014). Her poems have appeared in SWWIM, SoFloPoJo, The Potomac Review, and other journals. She lives and writes between Kalamazoo and Manistee Michigan, with her partner and their three teenage daughters.

SUBMIT to Transition: Poems in the Afterglow via our SUBMITTABLE site. 

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.

Lisa Alvarez
CPR

November dawn
the early morning air of election day
crisp as a new ballot

We kneel beside the republic’s body
whispering
breathe

—Submitted on 11/08/2020

Lisa Alvarez’s poetry and prose have appeared most recently in in Borderlands, Faultline, Huizache, Los Angeles Times, Santa Monica Review, and other journals, as well as in the anthologies Sudden Fiction Latino: Short-Short Stories from the United States and Latin America (W. W. Norton & Company, 2010), and Only Light Can Do That: 100 Post-Election Poems, Stories & Essays (The Rattling Wall and PEN Center USA, 2017). Alvarez holds an MFA in fiction from the University of California, Irvine, and teaches writing at a community college in Orange County.

SUBMIT to Transition: Poems in the Afterglow via our SUBMITTABLE site. 

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.

Jenna Le
November Air

I’m frazzled. My hair, snaggled,
stands on end like a raspberry’s.
When I lag on the Amtrak platform,
a man rasps, “Faster, asshole.”

Troubled, trampled
by the trompe l’oeil of the news cycle,
I’d like to travel to an isle tropical.
Yet I shrivel like a shrimp in a thimble.

I’d like to think what’s promised today
surpasses pom-poms and palmistry.
But I’m done quavering.
Henceforth, I’m singing whole note after whole note.

—Submitted on 11/08/2020

Jenna Le is the author of Six Rivers (NYQ Books, 2011) and A History of the Cetacean American Diaspora (Indolent Books, 2018).

SUBMIT to Transition: Poems in the Afterglow via our SUBMITTABLE site. 

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.

A poem from the What Rough Beast submission queue

Emily Jo Scalzo
2020 Election

they say it’s the edge
of a chasm so deep
we never hear the echo
but in reality we tripped
into it so long ago
we don’t remember
that we’re falling

—Submitted on 11/03/2020

Emily Jo Scalzo is the author of The Politics of Division (Five Oaks Press, 2017). Her work has appeared in Midwestern Gothic, Mobius, Blue Collar Review, New Verse News, and others journals. Scalzo holds an MFA in fiction from California State University, Fresno, and is an assistant teaching professor of research and creative writing at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.

SUBMIT to Transition: Poems in the Afterglow via our SUBMITTABLE site. 

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value our online poetry series, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.

Indran Amirthanayagam
To Oz and Beyond

You must be depressed, Mr. President
watching the drip drip of tabulating,
red wall crumbling, and all the king’s
men turning mum, just your sons
and personal lawyer braying on Twitter,
and yes, an army of a thousand others
bringing spurious charges before
what was to have been your last line
of defense, the federal and Supreme courts.
But your plans were stymied by
the electoral calendar, this unfortunate
need to be reviewed by the people
every four years. Just not enough time
to seal the borders of justice and democracy,
to gut the civic dreams even of your own
party members. Depressing and certainly
cheering to your opponent, that sleepy fellow
who has crawled over the finishing line
with pride while you founder somewhere
in the attic of that now windy mansion,
wondering whether the last ride will come
from a helicopter out and above the Potomac
on the way to Andrews and the final flight
to Mar- a- Lago, then after a swift packing
of bags, by private jet to some territory
in the back of yonder, Oz, beyond.

—Submitted on 11/07/2020

Indran Amirthanayagam is the author of The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, 2020) and Sur L’ile nostalgique (L’Harmattan, 2020). He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly.

SUBMIT to Transition: Poems in the Afterglow via our SUBMITTABLE site. 

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value our online poetry series, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.